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Pigeon Pie

A savory pie with pigeons stewed in a parsley, thyme, and mushroom batter, topped with pastry and served with a buttered consommé sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Pigeon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Make a batter and mix in the parsley, lemon thyme, and mushrooms.

  2. Stew the pigeons in the batter with pepper and salt inside for a few minutes.

  3. Turn the pigeons and add enough consomme to cover them; stew until well done.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Assemble the pie

  1. Roll out a portion of pastry to line the edge of a pie dish.

  2. Place the pigeons in the dish with the hard-boiled egg yolks.

  3. Pour half the cooking liquid over the pigeons and season with pepper and salt.

  4. Cover with the top crust, leaving a hole in the center; brush with egg.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until cooked through but not browned.

  2. For the sauce, heat the remaining cooking liquid with a little butter and pour over the pie before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Flour
Forms the pastry structure that holds the pie together while baking.
Consomme
Adds savory moisture that cooks the pigeons and forms the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy savory depth to the filling.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a soft, crumbly body to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the finishing sauce.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through but not browned. Baking at 350°F gently finishes the meat and filling without overcooking. Browning the crust too far usually means the interior has been heated too long and turns dry.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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